By: Bob Shwalb, Special to The Record
Rinaldi is ready for whatever comes his way.
On Saturday, the Hasbrouck Heights senior will drive more than an hour south on the New Jersey Turnpike to be in a field of 112 players from around the state competing in the NJSIAA singles tournament.
And he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
“I’m playing a seeded player so the expectations are obviously low,” Rinaldi said. “But because of that, I’m just going to play my game and have fun with it.”
“This is going to be great,” he said, and beamed. “When my coach [Suzanne Caines] told me about it a couple weeks ago I was like, ‘Of course I want to do it!’”
Rinaldi will have his hands full when he faces Lenape standout Jack Lavin in the opening round.
While the Aviators’ captain is playing for the experience, several other locals have bigger goals in mind.
Dwight-Englewood junior Daniel Nuzhny and Cresskill sophomore Chikaya Sato are seeded second and seventh, respectively, and are aiming for the crown. North Jersey has two other seeded players in Ridgewood’s Kobe Ellenbogen (10th) and NV/Demarest’s Carlos Vasquez (30th).
Last year, Nuzhny lost in the semifinals to West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Kabir Sarita. Sato reached the round of 16 where he dropped a 10-5 super tiebreaker (played in lieu of a third set) to East Brunswick’s defending champion Joshua Marchalik.
Now, the Bulldog and Cougar aces hope to claim the crown held by NV/Demarest’s Michael Rozenvasser, who beat Sarita in last year’s finals and is now playing for Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
“I’m excited to represent my team and my school,” Sato said. “It’s going to be a really fun experience.
“All the top seeds are very good so it really don’t care where I’m seeded or who I play. I feel like I’m a better player this year so hopefully I can have a good run.”
Since Sato and Nuzhny are on opposite sides of the bracket, the only place they could meet is the finals.
“I made the [state] quarters as a freshman and the semis last year so hopefully I’ll do even better and win it,” Nuzhny said. “I think I have a pretty good chance if I play well.
“It feels different this year,” he added. “There’s a lot of prestige that comes with being the No. 2 seed. Hopefully I can live up to it.”
In the state doubles tournament, Dwight-Englewood’s Cameron Janssens and Tejas Akula are seeded 10th while Northern Highlands’ Brendan Holleran and Zach Levin are the No. 15 seeds. The Bulldog duo won the county small-schools first-doubles crown while the Highlanders won the large-schools first-doubles title.
Divisional champions
NJIC – Meadowlands: Dwight-Englewood (Daniel Nuzhny, Nikhil Kokra); Colonial: Glen Rock (Erik Vreedenburgh, Eddie Corvelli); Patriot: Hasbrouck Heights (Justin Rinaldi).
NJSIAA singles/doubles tournament
Where: Mercer County Park and Veteran’s Park, West Windsor
When: Preliminary rounds: June 3-5, Quarterfinals, semifinals and finals: June 6-8
NJIC athletes in Tournament
SINGLES:
Seeded: #2 Dan Nuzhny (Dwight-Englewood), #7 Chikaya Sato (Cresskill),
Unseeded: Rick Sivarak (Dwight-Englewood), Justin Rinaldi (Hasbrouck Heights)
DOUBLES:
Seeded: #10 Dwight-Englewood (Cameron Janssens/Tejas Akula)
Unseeded: Hasbrouck Heights (Tenzin Shakya/Mario Kaldus)
